Conor Stewart
Research expert covering health & pharmaceuticals in the UK & Europe
mHealth - statistics and facts
Mobile health or mHealth refers to medicine and public health services through smartphone and wearables use. MHealth incorporates services such as health and wellness, remote patient monitoring, and health information and education. The technology can improve the overall healthcare system by improving efficiency, communication, costs, and quality of healthcare services. The convenience and ubiquity of smartphones, especially in developed countries, enable healthcare to be more accessible through mHealth. Healthcare will become much more personalized and patient-centric as the use of mHealth continues to increase. As was the case for digital health in general, the COVID-19 pandemic was a colossal driver for mHealth.
Mobile device use
Using digital forms for consumer communication with healthcare professionals is becoming more common and is often considered a more convenient means of contact. MHealth services are able to provide programs for chronic conditions, remote monitoring, patient data, electronic records, e-prescriptions, and also include fitness and wellness applications. Using mobile devices to monitor health and data of patients is especially convenient. Millions of U.S. dollars can be saved annual in avoidable healthcare costs, for example by simply helping to improve poor prescription drug adherence. The majority of such apps are free to download, allowing anyone with a mobile device the possibility to use. However, this has not stopped mHealth apps from being one of the most invested in digital health category worldwide.Benefits can be enjoyed by everyone
Thousands of healthcare applications are available for both consumers and healthcare professionals, as well as applications that have different functionalities. The most tracked health metric in the U.S. in 2023 was sleep. Further topics that many consumers use apps to track include weight, diet, blood pressure, and menstrual cycle. The perceived effectiveness of devices to track health properties was found to be high across all age groups according to a survey. Therefore, wearables can be equally useful to a 20-year-old as a 70-year-old, despite use currently being lower in older age groups. It could be argued that older consumers have the most to benefit from wearables since they have more contact with health care and issues which require more constant observations.
